Journals and essays from the life of a quintessential Englishman
1913-2006

Monday, June 30, 2008

Thursday 10th August 1939

Ten calls, one order (22/-) on the short country journey. Yet another stickily warm, rainy day. Fed-up by 3 o’clock, so I came home. Wasted enough petrol! Now I think I’ll have a bath, as it is not tea-time yet. One needs a bath every day in this humid weather.

Having just re-read my notes (yesterday’s) re Mary, even I feel guilty! I think we must arrange to gradually see less of each other. That way does not hurt as does the sudden break. (A girl like April is different. She is a bit like me – elastic, fickle, light-hearted. People like she and I are the lucky ones.) But a girl of Mary’s type is slowly stirred, easily hurt; she must not be either. She is a serious sort of person, more fitted for marriage than flirtation. Besides for a girl of her sort, half the fun of an affair must be gone when it becomes secret. I’m sure the family aspect of an affair – friends and relatives – is important to her.

Sinister item in today’s news! The German troops now massed on the Polish frontier (for what?) have been issued with Polish phrase books so that they can say in Polish tongue such things as: “Where is your husband?”, “If you resist we will burn down your house” and “Don’t move or we shall kill you”. Apparently similar books, in the Czech language, were also issued prior to the Sudetenland invasion last year.

I, like most of the people of this once peaceful country, am now resigned to War.We have had so much of the threat of war now that we are almost accepting the reality before it comes. If and when there is war, I shall be excited, tense, thrilled and nervous, no doubt but all the same – resigned to it.